February 21, 2021

Hot from the oven at 5 a.m.

IMG_2417 

Meade made bread... for the second day in a row. He even milled the grains and seeds — wheat, oats, teff, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, sesame seeds. 

Teff?! I had never heard of it.

Eragrostis tef, also known as teff, Williams lovegrass or annual bunch grass, is an annual grass, a species of lovegrass native to the Horn of Africa, notably to modern-day Ethiopia. It is cultivated for its edible seeds, also known as teff.... The name teff is thought to originate from the Amharic word teffa, which means “lost”. This probably refers to its tiny seeds, which have a diameter smaller than 1 mm....

So teff was one of the seeds, not one of the grains? What is the difference between a grain and a seed? I realize I don't know. From the Wikipedia article "Grain"

A grain is a small, hard, dry seed, with or without an attached hull or fruit layer, harvested for human or animal consumption.... Grains and cereal are synonymous with caryopses, the fruits of the grass family. In agronomy and commerce, seeds or fruits from other plant families are called grains if they resemble caryopses.

So teff is a grain (and a seed) and wheat is a seed (and a grain). It's good to know these terms and facts. Also good: Fresh Meade-made bread in the house!

51 comments:

mezzrow said...

Mmmmm.... Fiber! Tasty fiber is the very best kind.

Wish I could smell it from here. Looks yummy.

"Men who bake bread are keepers." - Mrs. M

Ann Althouse said...

"Wish I could smell it from here."

Me too.

Ralph L said...

I hope teff tastes better than tufa.

Mid-Life Lawyer said...

Looks great! It seems like it would be good running food with a little butter and hot tea.

Fandor said...

Mmm, mmm, mmm...the way to start a new day!

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

What's with the garlic?

Meade said...

“What’s with the garlic?”

aphrodisiac

Gabriel said...

I bake a loaf of sourdough bread every other day.

Teff is used to make a sort of sourdough pancake that Ethiopian food is served on; you break off the cake and pick up the food with it.

Howard said...

Second Wave Covid Bubble Bread

Jeff Vader said...

Our local Ethiopian restaurant is named Teff, it’s really good although take out is not as good as eating there, injera doesn’t travel well

David Begley said...

How does it taste?

Eleanor said...

I make all of my own bread, including burger buns and English muffins. When I replaced my stove, I bought one with a proofing cycle. That takes a lot of the guesswork out of how long it takes to complete the process. I like to use different kinds of flour. There are llots of places to source good quality product. I recently wanted to thank a neighbor for something he had done for me, and I made him some stew with bread bowls to serve it in. People often think making bread is difficult, but I think it's more magic. The process is more forgiving than baking a cake. I've never had bread come out inedible.

stevew said...

Looks terrific and the recipe sounds delightful. If only we had smell-o-vision!

Lurker21 said...

Eragrostis tef, also known as teff, Williams lovegrass or annual bunch grass ...

Awwww!

Cute.

iowan2 said...

I know the love is deep in Althouse, house, but a word the wise is sufficient on this.

Ergot.

Jake said...

His shaping game needs work. Was he using a Dutch oven?

Temujin said...

Love fresh bread. Even Meade-made with caryopses and teff.

Humperdink said...

Our garden produced so much zucchini (it grew like weeds) spouse made zucchini bread. It's to die for.

iowan2 said...

When I get full of self pity and think my life is hard, I go back to my youth.
We traded work with a neighbor that dairied. We would go over in the morning after chores, and fill silo. At dinner their was always fresh bread. The wife would get up and bake bread every morning. And still do an hour of morning outdoor tasks, tending to the calf chores. And having breakfast on the table at 7am. And do it,365 days a year.
My life is cushy.

Bob Boyd said...

How do you mill the grain and seed, Meade?

The Elder said...

Diversity is better in breads than in universities.

Bob Boyd said...

An old moderator named Meade
Milled up all his own grain and seed
He was hip deep in loaves
But he swore that, "By Jove"
"I never bake more than I knead"

Meade said...

“How do you mill the grain and seed, Meade?”

MOLINO “CORONA” (available through your Whole Earth Catalog. What? Whaddaya mean you don’t still have your Whole Earth Catalog? Some flower child you turned out to be!) Try eBay. Apparently, millennials don’t know what to do with all the hippie stuff they’re inheriting from their parents.

Bob Boyd said...

You should hook that baby up to your mountain bike.

tcrosse said...

A must for the home baker is How to Bake Everything by Mark Bittman, available you-know-where.

Meade said...

tcrosse: that’s exactly what I used. Page 833 “Jim Lahey’s No-Work Bread.” The no-work part of course appealed to my essential hippie nature. Plus I couldn’t find my old battered copy of The Tassajara Bread Book. Guess I must’ve already shipped it off to one of the kids. Along my old bong. Just kidding. I wake and bake with the real thing now days. Psilocybin. Kidding again.

Francisco D said...

It looks really good and tasty, but you can't really make sandwiches with it.

I'm guessing no one at Meadehouse is on the Keto diet.

Linda said...

It looks really good.
I was gifted a wonderfully active sourdough starter for Christmas. My son and girlfriend worked hard to “develop” it. I had tried several years ago to get a starter going, but I just wasn’t very successful. It was OK, but not very active. I have made bread weekly since Christmas. Homemade is just so good. Today is prep day, they will proof overnight in the frig and I will bake two loaves tomorrow. Sometimes we eat both and sometimes I give one away.. I might try to make pretzels this afternoon with the discard.

Whiskeybum said...

Bob Boyd @ 7:53

Excellent

You are now officially a candidate for poet laureate of the Althouse blog

Meade said...

Yes, Bob, excellent indeed!

Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...

It looks like a bran muffin top.

tcrosse said...

I bake my no-knead bread in a loaf pan so that slices of it fit in the toaster.

wild chicken said...

I love whole wheat and my first loaf was einkorn ww flour but man that stuff don't rise. Turned into a loaf of lead.

JML said...

I have tried baking bread, usually with not so good results. I need to keep trying. I do make a good 'fried' Bannock Bread in the pan while camping, including gluten free when appropriate. The addition of blueberries is especially helpful.

tcrosse said...

Gluten may be an unfashionable protein, but bread needs it.

Openidname said...

Making bread from six different grains that you mailed yourself is the most Madison thing I've ever heard of. It almost reaches a Portland level of Madison.

Openidname said...

"Milled."

rcocean said...

Nothing better than homemade bread with some butter. Too bad the carbs are verboten on my current diet.

Skeptical Voter said...

Our host needs to visit an Ethiopian restaurant. We have a few here in Los Angeles. She'll find breads made with teff there. She also probably won't find silverware or cutlery in the restaurant. The flat bread is the scoop for food.

Mid-Life Lawyer said...

Nice, Bob.

Iman said...

You’re pushin’ too hard on this teff seed thing...

LA_Bob said...

"We have a few here in Los Angeles"

There are several Ethiopian restaurants in Little Ethiopia along Fairfax Blvd. They're all next door or across the street from each other, and I don't see how they all survived even before COVID.

Injera, the Ethiopian flatbread made from teff is very good. Spongy texture with a sourdough flavor. I understand some of the bread is a blend of wheat and teff as teff is expensive to harvest.

Iman said...

“You know the dealer, the dealer is a man
With the love grass in his hand
Oh but the pusher is a monster
Good God, he's not a natural man
The dealer for a nickel
Lord, will sell you lots of sweet dreams
Ah, but the pusher ruin your body
Lord, he'll leave your, he'll leave your mind to scream”

ALP said...

Apparently, millennials don’t know what to do with all the hippie stuff they’re inheriting from their parents.
**********
No kidding - when 'cooking' consists of Blue Apron boxes showing up on your doorstep, a mill would be viewed as a foreign object from another planet. We seem to be evolving into 'foodies' as one group and 'can't boil water' as another. Little in between.

Our recent culinary adventure - ube jam and then ube pancakes made with said jam. The latter from Good Housekeeping - Philippines edition.

The bread looks similar to sourdough The Boyfriend makes using a Dutch Oven - although we are not fans of the super whole grain type of bread. Lacking in this hippie cred, we make up for it with daily weed use.

Iman said...

The bread looks similar to sourdough The Boyfriend makes using a Dutch Oven

How’s the flavor and aroma?

ALP said...

Very nice - makes a nice crust on the outside making bread in the Dutch Oven. Generally when he's really ambitious he does sourdough - most of the time he makes a standard loaf. The heaviest we'll go is half whole wheat half white.

ALP said...

The Boyfriend reports he was influenced by The Wooden Spoon Bread Book in his bread baking. I am learning a lot about his relationship to bread today - turns out I missed his really hard core bread baking days.

Charlie Currie said...

I just found the YouTube channel Weeds and Sardines. Young guy baking bread, and other things, but mostly bread in his home kitchen. Was/is a bread baker by profession. Very entertaining, very informative. Episodes for beginners to experienced bakers. He's a fan of Tartine Bakery.

He'll either inspire you to start baking bread, or, realizing how involved it can be for those with less patience, send you to the market for some fresh baked bread.

Anonymous said...

So? Was it good? The bread. Was it good?

Iowan2 needs to be the judge of this.

NKP said...

Bread without aroma is just a pretty picture. Nothing wrong wth pretty pictures, of course. At least it’s a “Bread of Color”. Seriously, what interests me in the pic is The Tomato. Is it real? Where did it come from? Where can I get one?

TheOne Who Is Not Obeyed said...

We have, or maybe had, an Ethiopian restaurant on State St. Used to go there monthly-ish, but not since the unpleasantness of last summer. Dunno if it's back, or boarded up, or gone, or a combo of all those things. Don't really care. If Madison never recovers from the riots it shall bother me not at all. And if it does recover, it shall interest me not at all.